What in your opinion is the last possible date that the Roman Empire can be saved? Preferrably there should be no East West Division but if you think it's the only way to save Rome then you can have the Eastern Roman and Western Roman Empires.
Last Possible POD to save the Roman Empire
- Thread starter Emperor Palpatine
- Start date
Im not sure what you mean by save? All empires will fall at some point and even if the WRE had survived past 476 it still would have to dealt with the muslim invasions and the loss of northern africa and iberia. At which point it probably would have collapsed for sure.
Well, there's a timeline here that saves it during Romulus Augustulus's reign. Magnum I believe recently started a timeline that saves it with Julius Nepos.
The best latest POD though is the 467 invasion of Africa.
The best latest POD though is the 467 invasion of Africa.
Maybe a son succeeds an emperor in the 4th century and is a strong leader who is popular amongst the people, senate and army. Have him succeed when hes young(preferably about 20) have him reign for at least 50 years and restore order while solving the issue of succession. Of course thats hella unrealistic but its the only possible way i could see it survive with any hope of lasting substantially longer than 476.
Surviving West Rome probably butterfly Islam away. But saving of WR would be still very difficult. East Rome is much easier, but I don't know what would be latest for this. But I am pretty suspicious can we stop division of Roman Empire.
Why should butterfly Islam? It could hamper the Islamic expansion westwards of Egypt through.
Depending on the state of the WR,we might see troops from the WRE transferred offer to fight the Persians in the Roman-Persian wars and the ERE never gets exhausted to the point it did in OTL.So Islam is probably going to get strangled in it's cradle by the ERE and the Sassanids if it tried the same stuff they did in OTL.
The rise of Islam was particularly contingent to the general weaknesses of both Romans and Persians in Near East, which created trade, political and religious vaacum. A PoD in the Vth century have good chances making this not disappearing (it would probably happen at some point) but changing enough to butterfly Islam.
Doesn't mean you couldn't have another religion, but the differenciation of Islam as another Abrahamic religion postdate several conquests : before that, the distinction was somehow more blurry. ITTL, if an Arabic abrahamic belief should arise, it might be quite different from Islam.
Anyway.
By Majorian, things already went too far : the emperor managed to play Barbarians against other Barbarians (as foederati, particularily), but it was an expedient. Ricimer already had too much control on imperium, and wouldn't accept a too powerful emperor.
Don't get me wrong, a more or less powerful patrician Italy could make the WRE living longer, but would wear it eventually and make it unable to undergo important reforms (as Majorian's demise points). At best the ERE would intervene to make it works again, meaning eventually a fusion of whatever remains of WRE with its eastern counterpart.
It might be what you search, tough : a general weariness of the WRE being captated up by the ERE, instead of being reconquered.
Even if he took back part of Africa, I'd tend to think it would be short-lived, and that it would have overstretched its political and ressources possibilities.
Africa, the only WRE province untouched by war, and therefore having important enough fiscal revenues, was already lost; and Barbarians were established as foederati a bit everywhere. That made a survival of WRE as an independent entity a bit perillous, as doable as with Majorian (as in not really plausible on long-term).
That said his survival, with a surviving Theodosian dynasty in the West may help things, would it be only because you'd get rid of the political instability its disappearance provoked. Would this be enough for WRE to survive? It's going to be really hard, but it's IMO the latest possible PoD.
Then the Empire sinks earlier, with even more divisions. See, contemporary needs made divisions happening de facto, as outer pressures required the presence of imperial lead (with imperial role becoming more and more military driven) on several fronts.
A sole emperor would have meant the risks of de facto usurpations from border's generals rising up. Instead of a more or less formalized divisions (which ended being West/East, but you had as well tripartite divisions as West/Center/East at some point) between collaborating co-emperors, you'd likely have several usurpers wasting ressources fighting each other.
Uhm, I don't see plausible any resilient WRE support in the East - First assuming a surviving Western Empire will be shrunked considerably (Britannia lost for sure, Gallia quite likely for the most part, Hispania guess too, along with Noricum and Pannonia)... Considering OTL the East didn't help at all the West, why later the West should help the East - sending valuable troops away?
Umm yes they did,at times.Emperor Leo I spearheaded a massive invasion of Africa in 468 to help buff up the west,a shame it failed due to incompetence.
The Byzantines also tried to recleam western land in the Gothic War.
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
Last POD is 475 AD... Even then, Italy is still very rich and a stable Roman government led by a strong emperor can have the Empire last another 50 years.
The east did help the west on more than one occasion. The first time would be immediately after the fall of Carthage, when Aspar was sent to Sicily with an army to prepare an invasion of North Africa. Though, that was only cancelled because of Attila. Second would be Leo's obsession with saving the west, culminating in the massive 467 expedition that more or less bankrupted the ERE treasury.
The Romans succeeded in re-establishing imperial control over large portions of the western Mediterranean throughout the later sixth and seventh centuries, and well into the eighth in some areas.
For the WRE: I tend to think Anthemius is probably the best decent chance, but I tend to agree with LSC that an Anthemius-led WRE would very much dance to a Constantinopolitan tune. It's also worth bearing in mind that a sixth century WRE is by no means out of the woods, given it will in all probability have to deal, as the ERE did IOTL, with the consequences of the rise of Turkic power over on the steppes.
According to Friell and Williams' The Rome That Did Not Fall, one of the major factors behind the fall of the West was rampant tax evasion among the elite, which meant that, whilst on paper the Western Empire ought to have been top dog in Europe (after the Eastern Empire), in practice the government was never able to raise enough money to maintain a proper army. Finding a way to clamp down on tax evasion would probably be necessary, and quite possibly be sufficient, to save the Western Empire.
fi11222
Banned
Like Arbiter said above, all empires fall eventually. So IMHO the only option to "save" some sort of Roman Empire until the present day is to have a cyclical process of fall and rebirth on the Chinese or Egyptian model. For that to be possible, you need to have a "Son of Heaven" at the helm, i.e. an Emperor that is even more divinely sanctioned than the Emperors of the early Empire. For that to be possible, no monotheism can be allowed to have much sway. So no Christianity and no Islam on a significan scale.
One possible POD would be Aurelian and his Sol Invictus cult. Maybe what it takes is just to let him live longer. Or it could be the Tetrarchy, with a better choice of sucessors after Diocletian. Or why not even Mark Anthony, with his Dionysos/Osirian model of kingship ? Also, some kind of polygamy would help, so that dynasties last longer.
Why would butterflying away monotheism be necessary? Monotheism and belief in divine sanction for rule are quite compatible.